With the word from Dorne a mixture of good and bad heaped with healthy servings of general frustration, the court of King’s Landing has continued on with barely a pause. Much has happened of late against this background:

It’s been said that Prince Aegon has been carousing in the city, or spending days hunting in the kingswood, and all the usual activities that he was accustomed to before the war with his boon companions. Yet the most recent word from Princess Naerys’s ladies-in-waiting suggest that there might be more than one cause for this, for the princess has taken to her bed, visited by septons and septas and maesters because she is with child. With her brother little caring for such company, it is no great surprise that the prince has kept away from her chambers. For her part, the Princess meets the pregnancy with resolute courage, keeping faith that the gods might give her another child. Her royal cousins, Prince Baelor and the princesses, have all visited her, as has the Hand her father, and it’s said that her brother Aemon is often with her, reading from the Seven-pointed Star and other holy books.

Prince Viserys has seemed pleased enough, but he has been as busy as ever, adjudicating matters, signing edicts, and dealing with myriad other issues. It has been noted that he has lately held a number of sessions of the small council, with several private audiences with the Master of Coin, Lord Barent Cargyll. Though King Daeron has put off his plans to return to King’s Landing in triumph while rebels like Caston Vaith and Mors Manwoody are still roaming at large in Dorne, the matter of finding some means to resume trade with Dorne has begun to occupy the minds of notable members of the court. Some say that it was in meetings with Prince Cadan Martell that the idea was placed in the Hand’s head, while others claim it was the Dondarrions—seeking to profit by their location at one end of the Boneway, through which much of the trade would pass—who have sought to bend his mind to it. Whatever the truth of it, some claim that Lady Carmella Dondarrion received a private audience with the Hand, and that afterwards she was seen conversing with some of the Dornish hostages (or perhaps it was with her mother, Lady Loreza; the Dornish all look alike, according to some.)

And what of the rumor that Rurik Greyjoy was up to no good in Flea Bottom? Certainly, the City Watch has been seen making inquiries amidst the potshops and hovels, and Ser Richard Harte has had an audience with Prince Viserys when the rumors of this first began to spread. Will anything come of it? Greyjoy is already believed to have committed numerous acts of piracy in his day, and only the fact that he is brother to Lord Greyjoy has protected him from a sorry end. Might this be the final straw for those charged with keeping law in the Seven Kingdoms?